In village after village, the people have been presenting exemplary cases of joint efforts for development of their village. They have shown the possibilities of local problem-solving mechanism when people unite in community organizations. They are setting examples that people in the villages should not, and need not, expect people "up" in the center to tackle with every single problem of the village.

CO members across the country have taken the responsibility of taking care of the established infrastructure in the village. Many COs have constructed their own "office" buildings by mobilizing their own resources so they have a permanent meeting place in the village. Those who have not already built community building are in the process of building them. The COs feel a sense of ownership and also the need of having a permanent forum at the grassroots.

 
3.2 BASIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BASELINE SURVEY (IN 1996) AND STATUS AS OF JUNE 1999

When people get organized into COs at the settlement level, they essentially increase their social capital. The situation in the villages after two and half years of programme implementation, looks promising. Organization of the community into groups and the resulting social cohesion has given significant outputs in the form of joint efforts to solving social problems and taking care of development efforts at the villages. Below are some of the differences observed in the settlements. (Some specific examples of the differences are cited in various boxes of this report)

 
3.3 FORMATION OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION (C0)

VDP’s aim is to mobilize 80 percent of the households (both men and women) into community organizations that remain organized for the community’s long-term self-reliant development. Women form separate groups so that they too can participate in the mainstream of local development. Similarly, members of the underprivileged/oppressed class are also urged to form separate groups in order to enable them to participate in the social empowerment process without hesitation.

During the formation of the COs, the VDC and the organizations sign contracts that tabulate a list of clauses binding the people to be responsible CO members as well as conscientious citizens. Among other things, the CO members pledge to send their children to school; urge the family to eat their greens; use and promote toilets and smokeless stoves; and take part in any participatory planning process in the village. (see 15 creeds of the COs)

3.3.1 Yearly Progress of CO Formation

An organization is one of the key aspects of social mobilization. VDP strongly believes that a single person’s efforts towards social change would not be able to achieve anything as compared to the combined efforts of the entire community. Therefore, formation of a CO is a basic activity of VDP carried out in the first phase of the programme. It is initiated while entering into the selected community under the professional facilitation of the Social Mobilizer of the Local Trust Fund (LTF) management team.

As of June 1999 VDP has covered 80.8% of the households in the selected VDCs. But the trend is catching as more and more VDCs are requesting that the programme be implemented in their villages as well. Replication of VDP by other programmes will soon ensure that this model of social mobilization for the development of villages will become a national model for development at the grassroots.

The progress and impact of programme coverage as of June 1999 have been summarized in the following:

Cumulative Progress of CO Formation as of June 1999

Evolving programme: The above information shows that the beginning two years (1996 and 1997) were the starting phase of VDP. When the community acknowledged the importance of the programme, there was a lot of demand from neighboring communities and VDCs for CO formation in their settlements as well.
Similarly, VDP also managed to gain confidence in this concept. As a result, VDP could be expanded in as many VDCs
today.

Members-based organization: CO is an organization of all member’ at the grassroots. They have to compulsorily attend weekly meetings. Special hierarchy is non-existent in the organization. Only two persons—the Chairperson and the Manager—are selected by the CO members as the ideal social workers of the village to lead the organization. COs are self-governing institutions and their micro-finance initiatives act as glue to keep the CO members united and to solve common problems.

Financial transparency is the most important factor in every aspects of the CO’s functioning. The Manager, therefore, has to take the responsibility of financial management and is accountable to all the members. The Chairperson is needed to provide an ideal leadership of the organization. However, just these two persons cannot make any decision, for all decisions are made on a consensus basis. This system has protected the rural people from the monopoly that is often exercised by the executive committees of the various users’ groups during discussions and decision-making processes.

Increasing trend: Looking at the progress of 1999 (two quarters), it is possible that an additional 2,000 COs will be formed by the end of 1999. If the current trend continues, there will be more than 7,500 COs involving 225,000 households (1,260,000 people) in 30 districts by the end of 2001.

3.3.2 Participation in COs

Increasing female participation: There were 38,747 women members in the 2,823 COs formed by June 1999. Of these COs, 1,076 are managed by women. It is apparent that VDP has created a bigger space for women to come into the mainstream of development. The principle justifying the formation of separate COs for women is that they can participate in the groups and share their feeling unfettered, without any domination of male members or cultural prohibition of the communities. Ultimately, the CO’s concept is based on settlement and household-based membership. Any benefit gained through the CO ultimately goes to the whole family. As more than 80 percent of the households in a particular settlement are organized in COs, decisions and activities undertaken by these COs reflect the needs of the whole settlement.

Social solidarity: The growing trend of CO formation indicates that earlier there was a vacuum in the communities for organizations formed for collective efforts and mutual benefits. Rural people wanted to be organized in some form of such organizations. Thus VDP has been successful in filling the vacuum, and has given a huge boost to the local development efforts of the country. People’s representatives of the respective districts (like Krishna Lal Sapkota of Chitwan quoted on p. 28) have realized that true local governance practices have to be started at the grassroots. Now, the upper tier of the political structures also have to be equally aware of the development efforts at the grassroots to smoothen the local governance process.